If it was more sound I would but it's almost 6 years old now and can't handle most of the content on the web. Videos are practically impossible to watch. It's just not worth the trouble. I've got the laptop to share and iPhone for other browsing so I'm not hurting too bad. Just impatient wanting a new one for myself.
Flash 10.2 beta reduced CPU usage considerably and you can always turn on HTML5 video for most sites these days, but it?s your machine your choice. Just trying to find a cheap solution to get you back in you Mac whilst waiting for Mac OS X Lion to drop, next August-October.
I'm really hoping the new MacBook Pros and iMacs don't have to wait for Lion. That would make the interval between MBP upgrades one of the longest in the history of the company. February would be a good time to put Sandy Bridge into the iMac.
USB 3.0 and/or Light Peak will not be included in any Mac until after Mac OS X "Lion" is released so Apple does not have to support them in "Snow Leopard". If a Mac is due for an update when Apple is about to release "Lion" then that update will get pushed back, otherwise, Apple will update them when they are ready.
With network drives being used more and others using cloud services, having an internal, mechanical hard drive is becoming less of a requirement.
A big internal drive is still a real requirement. My MBP is an edit suite, an audio studio and graphics house, and it has to be able to fill those roles wherever I happen to be when the work needs to be done. While the projects themselves are stored on external drives, I'm finding I really need to keep commonly used production elements on the internal drive so they're always accessible regardless of which project drives I happen to be hauling around that day. That adds up to hundreds of gigs.
I hope they bring back the 24" iMac, that is the sweet spot.
Well, I really enjoy mine .... but I have to be honest .... I look with envy at the the 27" that my son owns. The trouble is, I had to "modify" the enclosure on my desk just to accommodate my 24" model and I don't think a 27" would be at all possible in that type of desk .... not sure I want to design my "house" around my computer.
It's nice to have visions of Lightpeak dance in our heads, but I need to connect to USB3 gear that's already out there NOW!!! It's frustrating as hell to tell a client I can't connect to that peripheral because OSX doesn't support USB3, while the guy with the Windows machine can. If the stalling at Apple goes on much longer, I predict a lot of us will quit waving off the HP rep and "make the switch" to Windows.
Replacing the HD in an iMac is not hard at all. Print out a step by step instruction and have a YouTube video at hand on another machine, and make sure you have the right tools and suckers to get the screen off. Go nice and slow and easy. It's a piece of cake, really.
As someone who recently had to do it 7 times in one weekend (same machine; that was painful) it isn't that hard at all. It is more nerve-racking than anything else. Once you have done it a couple of times, it becomes a breeze. I can do a complete teardown to hard-drive, replace, and reassemble within 20 minutes.
For those of you who are curious, my hard drive started to fail. I had a third-party drive in there (and forgot about) so I took it to the Apple Store to get it replaced. They told me they couldn't (which I wasn't upset about), but when they tore it down to make that decision, they accidentally de-sodered the SATA connection from Hard Drive to motherboard. So when I did it, no drives were coming up. Long story short, Apple fixed it when I put the original HDD in there, even-though I had been in there. Then I put in the drive I wanted (a 1TB HDD), and everything is good now.
I would like to see a 128GB SSD boot drive like the MacBook Air combined with a traditional 1-2TB hard drive, but at MacBook Air type prices not the incredibly inflated ones they currently charge for iMacs with that type of setup.
I store almost nothing in the cloud where it's open to the abuses of hackers and the very companies storing the data whose only motivation for keeping your data somewhat safe is so their competition doesn't get a hold of it. Google and many others want your data so they can sell it. Don't give it to them unless you want to be bought and sold like a commodity.
Please can we stop obsessing about thin. The iMac is a desktop computer FFS. It doesn't need to be thin it needs to be able to keep cool while pushing desktop CPUs and GPUs into Turbo mode.
I really hope they include SSD's as boot drives, even if they're tiny like 64GB, they'd still get the job done of quick startups + basic file storage. Large media files can go on the traditional drive. That would be a great computer setup.
I also agree that Jobs needs to freaking relax about thinness. In an iMac it's completely unnecessary. Who's carrying around an iMac? No one. No one will notice whether or not your iMac is 1.5" or 2" thick when it's on a desk.
As for the portables, I'd love to see Apple ditch the ODD so they can put in better hardware that soaks up more power. They can always allow you to buy an external SuperDrive for when you need a disk drive. Hell, they should make an external BluRay compatible superdrive. That'd be awesome. I've never seen why Jobs always has to make the MBP's so much thinner at the expense of top-of-the-line mobile performance, which it what they should have being PRO models. I mean, people who expect to lug around a MBP already expect it to be a decently heavy laptop, thinness is more important for 13" MBP's + MBA's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bregalad
I'm really hoping the new MacBook Pros and iMacs don't have to wait for Lion. That would make the interval between MBP upgrades one of the longest in the history of the company. February would be a good time to put Sandy Bridge into the iMac.
I have a second selfish reason. I can't afford both an iMac and to replace the last few software packages I have from the PowerPC era like Photoshop 8.
I know SJ dissed USB 3.0, but Light Peak may not be ready until fall and all the external hard drives these days feature USB 3.0 so I hope the next Macs ship with it. FireWire 800 is expensive and staring to look slow compared to USB 3.
The problem with 3.0 is that Jobs, IIRC, said Apple's not really interested in it. The availability of it in a Mac also depends on Intel's chipsets, which won't support USB 3.0 until sometime in 2011. They'll probably just stick to USB2.0/FW for the interim, and then switch to lightpeak, and provide converter cables for lightpeak to USB3.0 (if that's feasible? otherwise then they'll probably add 1 USB3.0 port).
I think my computer setup of 1 MBP might evolve into a MBA + Mac Mini Server (assuming the new Mini's don't get shafted with Intel integrated graphics (which they probably will), in which case I'll get an iMac.
They do need to update the portables though. They're insanely overpriced for their hardware now. It seems to me that even though the MBP's have lowered in price, there's a bigger "Mac tax" now then before. Back when I got my 2.33Ghz MBP in 2006, that was the best processor available for a mobile computer, and it was standard, so I didn't mind the higher price, because I got something for it (it also came with bluetooth + other stuff that wasn't standard in all computers back then). Now they want to charge you something ridiculous like $400 to upgrade the processor in a MBP to the best i7, when the damn processor itself only costs like $300-350 in bulk (and you still "pay" for the base processor since that's included in the base price). So you pay a ton for mid level processors. I hate it.
No because 16:9 is an appalling ratio for a work machine, or a game machine for that matter - how many PC games do you know that are designed in full wide screen.
Every multi-platform game since late 2005, and every PC-exclusive game since mid 2007. Granted, it's only been in the last few years that PC widescreen has become standardized as Horz+ rather than Vert-, but there you go.
Physical media is dead...didn't you notice? The rest of the world did...
That is BS, Blu-Ray content sales were up 61% versus same period last year. It is being accepted on a faster rate than DVD was adopted.
This is a format war only because Apple wants to kill physical media for itunes movie store.
And Apple wants to establish the Mac App store. so killing off optical media drives would help them endeavor to push software without physical media. which i am not sure if i love the idea of because of the censorship on iphone/ipad software.
and to those who are extolling SSD, they are expensive and honestly their storage capacity is a bit limited for the $$.
why not let consumers get the option to choose. that wouldnt hurt anyone? honestly, i am going PC if apple wont do BD or USB 3. by Feb. I need a new desktop and laptop. but i am unwilling to accept Apple and it's agenda to limit technology which costs them $$.
That is BS, Blu-Ray content sales were up 61% versus same period last year. It is being accepted on a faster rate than DVD was adopted.
This is a format war only because Apple wants to kill physical media for itunes movie store.
and to those who are extolling SSD, they are expensive and honestly their storage capacity is a bit limited for the $$.
why not let consumers get the option to choose. that wouldnt hurt anyone? honestly, i am going PC if apple wont do BD or USB 3. by Feb. I need a new desktop and laptop. but i am unwilling to accept Apple and it's agenda to limit technology which costs them $$.
it is BS.
1) How many videos were watched from all streaming sources compared to all optical disc sources? I bet YouTube by itself is higher than all BR watched. Even Netflix is seeing a huge drive for streaming over mailed discs.
2) How many of those BR videos were watched on PCs and not in a Home Theater setup with an HDTV where Blu-ray is optimal?
That is BS, Blu-Ray content sales were up 61% versus same period last year. It is being accepted on a faster rate than DVD was adopted.
Blu-Ray can become obsolete just as fast.
Netflix already has lots of problems with BD - the disks break much more easily in the mail than DVDs. I probably watch ten times as much streaming content on Netflix than actual disks. While Blu-Ray vs. streaming Netflix resolution is amazing, BD navigation is inconvenient. As far as I'm concerned streaming is "good enough" for now. And if you must have 1080p and Dolby TrueHD, Vudu offers it.
Quote:
This is a format war only because Apple wants to kill physical media for itunes movie store.
The market will do that. Apple won't have to do a thing.
Quote:
...and to those who are extolling SSD, they are expensive and honestly their storage capacity is a bit limited for the $$.
That too will change, rapidly IMO. I won't miss the spinning disks one bit.
Quote:
honestly, i am going PC if apple wont do BD or USB 3. by Feb.
Physical media is dead...didn't you notice? The rest of the world did...
I must be missing something. Because Blu-ray sales in the U.S. alone this year are $1.285 billion as of 12/5 and DVD sales are $7.8 billion. While the combined $9+ billion is down from 2009 (by about 6%), that's still a massive industry.
For people who just want to see the movie and don't really care about quality, they'll download. But those people who don't want to see big blocks of black squares in dark scenes will want BD, especially for large monitors and TVs.
If there's a film I don't care much about and only intend to watch once and I don't expect the cinematography or the sound to be great (like a cheap comedy), I'll download it. But if it's a classic or a film I intend to watch more than once or want the "extras" - the commentary, outtakes, documentaries, etc., I go for the Blu-ray. Apple may decide to ignore the technology because Steve is so freaking anal-retentive, but I would prefer they incorporate it. Also, I prefer CDs as a distribution medium for large software packages. Furthermore, most of my iPod music library comes from my CDs or vinyl transferred to CDs. If Apple takes the optical drive out of the Mac, they'll lose me as a customer (and I've been a customer since the Apple II) because I have absolutely no intention of "double dipping".
Sandy Bridge doesn't have quad-core i5s unfortunately, that will be Ivy Bridge so we'll have to wait until 2012 for that. But I can see that above spec quite easily next year. I reckon 1920 x 1200 on a 15" would be a bit squashed unless they get RI implemented. I'd be happy to see the 1680 x 1050 resolution though.
That is BS, Blu-Ray content sales were up 61% versus same period last year. It is being accepted on a faster rate than DVD was adopted.
This is a format war only because Apple wants to kill physical media for itunes movie store.
And Apple wants to establish the Mac App store. so killing off optical media drives would help them endeavor to push software without physical media. which i am not sure if i love the idea of because of the censorship on iphone/ipad software.
and to those who are extolling SSD, they are expensive and honestly their storage capacity is a bit limited for the $$.
why not let consumers get the option to choose. that wouldnt hurt anyone? honestly, i am going PC if apple wont do BD or USB 3. by Feb. I need a new desktop and laptop. but i am unwilling to accept Apple and it's agenda to limit technology which costs them $$.
it is BS.
How many of those Blu-ray sales included the dvd and digital copies disc? It's real easy to buy that even if you don't have a blu-ray player. To my knowledge, there were never any dvd+vhs sets sold in stores.
Apple has not updated the Macbook Pro line is 248 days, so an update is certainly coming. By February, they will be 10 months old. If they didn't change them until june, 14 months old.
I've been telling everyone to wait until February, which is when I expect at least an update, but probably a re-design. Waiting until June/10.7 would mean the current generation of MacBook Pros would be 14 months old, which would probably be the longest cycle in company history.
Sandy Bridge doesn't have quad-core i5s unfortunately, that will be Ivy Bridge so we'll have to wait until 2012 for that. But I can see that above spec quite easily next year. I reckon 1920 x 1200 on a 15" would be a bit squashed unless they get RI implemented. I'd be happy to see the 1680 x 1050 resolution though.
This year for $1999, I'd expect:
dual-core i5 e.g Core i5-2520M
1680 x 1050 on the 15"
Light Peak x 2 (merged with USB port)
no optical
256GB SSD
Radeon 6550/6570 with 1GB GDDR5 VRAM.
4.5-5lbs
256 GB hard drives are now redundant. It doesn't matter whether they're SSDs or regular HDDs. Apple has to offer minimum 500 Gb drives and preferably I TB drives as standard with 2 TB drives as options.
Comments
If it was more sound I would but it's almost 6 years old now and can't handle most of the content on the web. Videos are practically impossible to watch. It's just not worth the trouble. I've got the laptop to share and iPhone for other browsing so I'm not hurting too bad. Just impatient wanting a new one for myself.
Flash 10.2 beta reduced CPU usage considerably and you can always turn on HTML5 video for most sites these days, but it?s your machine your choice. Just trying to find a cheap solution to get you back in you Mac whilst waiting for Mac OS X Lion to drop, next August-October.
I'm really hoping the new MacBook Pros and iMacs don't have to wait for Lion. That would make the interval between MBP upgrades one of the longest in the history of the company. February would be a good time to put Sandy Bridge into the iMac.
USB 3.0 and/or Light Peak will not be included in any Mac until after Mac OS X "Lion" is released so Apple does not have to support them in "Snow Leopard". If a Mac is due for an update when Apple is about to release "Lion" then that update will get pushed back, otherwise, Apple will update them when they are ready.
With network drives being used more and others using cloud services, having an internal, mechanical hard drive is becoming less of a requirement.
A big internal drive is still a real requirement. My MBP is an edit suite, an audio studio and graphics house, and it has to be able to fill those roles wherever I happen to be when the work needs to be done. While the projects themselves are stored on external drives, I'm finding I really need to keep commonly used production elements on the internal drive so they're always accessible regardless of which project drives I happen to be hauling around that day. That adds up to hundreds of gigs.
I hope they bring back the 24" iMac, that is the sweet spot.
Well, I really enjoy mine .... but I have to be honest .... I look with envy at the the 27" that my son owns. The trouble is, I had to "modify" the enclosure on my desk just to accommodate my 24" model and I don't think a 27" would be at all possible in that type of desk .... not sure I want to design my "house" around my computer.
.... not sure I want to design my "house" around my computer.
What's wrong with you?
Replacing the HD in an iMac is not hard at all. Print out a step by step instruction and have a YouTube video at hand on another machine, and make sure you have the right tools and suckers to get the screen off. Go nice and slow and easy. It's a piece of cake, really.
As someone who recently had to do it 7 times in one weekend (same machine; that was painful) it isn't that hard at all. It is more nerve-racking than anything else. Once you have done it a couple of times, it becomes a breeze. I can do a complete teardown to hard-drive, replace, and reassemble within 20 minutes.
For those of you who are curious, my hard drive started to fail. I had a third-party drive in there (and forgot about) so I took it to the Apple Store to get it replaced. They told me they couldn't (which I wasn't upset about), but when they tore it down to make that decision, they accidentally de-sodered the SATA connection from Hard Drive to motherboard. So when I did it, no drives were coming up. Long story short, Apple fixed it when I put the original HDD in there, even-though I had been in there. Then I put in the drive I wanted (a 1TB HDD), and everything is good now.
I would like to see a 128GB SSD boot drive like the MacBook Air combined with a traditional 1-2TB hard drive, but at MacBook Air type prices not the incredibly inflated ones they currently charge for iMacs with that type of setup.
I store almost nothing in the cloud where it's open to the abuses of hackers and the very companies storing the data whose only motivation for keeping your data somewhat safe is so their competition doesn't get a hold of it. Google and many others want your data so they can sell it. Don't give it to them unless you want to be bought and sold like a commodity.
Please can we stop obsessing about thin. The iMac is a desktop computer FFS. It doesn't need to be thin it needs to be able to keep cool while pushing desktop CPUs and GPUs into Turbo mode.
I really hope they include SSD's as boot drives, even if they're tiny like 64GB, they'd still get the job done of quick startups + basic file storage. Large media files can go on the traditional drive. That would be a great computer setup.
I also agree that Jobs needs to freaking relax about thinness. In an iMac it's completely unnecessary. Who's carrying around an iMac? No one. No one will notice whether or not your iMac is 1.5" or 2" thick when it's on a desk.
As for the portables, I'd love to see Apple ditch the ODD so they can put in better hardware that soaks up more power. They can always allow you to buy an external SuperDrive for when you need a disk drive. Hell, they should make an external BluRay compatible superdrive. That'd be awesome. I've never seen why Jobs always has to make the MBP's so much thinner at the expense of top-of-the-line mobile performance, which it what they should have being PRO models. I mean, people who expect to lug around a MBP already expect it to be a decently heavy laptop, thinness is more important for 13" MBP's + MBA's.
I'm really hoping the new MacBook Pros and iMacs don't have to wait for Lion. That would make the interval between MBP upgrades one of the longest in the history of the company. February would be a good time to put Sandy Bridge into the iMac.
I have a second selfish reason. I can't afford both an iMac and to replace the last few software packages I have from the PowerPC era like Photoshop 8.
I know SJ dissed USB 3.0, but Light Peak may not be ready until fall and all the external hard drives these days feature USB 3.0 so I hope the next Macs ship with it. FireWire 800 is expensive and staring to look slow compared to USB 3.
The problem with 3.0 is that Jobs, IIRC, said Apple's not really interested in it. The availability of it in a Mac also depends on Intel's chipsets, which won't support USB 3.0 until sometime in 2011. They'll probably just stick to USB2.0/FW for the interim, and then switch to lightpeak, and provide converter cables for lightpeak to USB3.0 (if that's feasible? otherwise then they'll probably add 1 USB3.0 port).
I think my computer setup of 1 MBP might evolve into a MBA + Mac Mini Server (assuming the new Mini's don't get shafted with Intel integrated graphics (which they probably will), in which case I'll get an iMac.
They do need to update the portables though. They're insanely overpriced for their hardware now. It seems to me that even though the MBP's have lowered in price, there's a bigger "Mac tax" now then before. Back when I got my 2.33Ghz MBP in 2006, that was the best processor available for a mobile computer, and it was standard, so I didn't mind the higher price, because I got something for it (it also came with bluetooth + other stuff that wasn't standard in all computers back then). Now they want to charge you something ridiculous like $400 to upgrade the processor in a MBP to the best i7, when the damn processor itself only costs like $300-350 in bulk (and you still "pay" for the base processor since that's included in the base price). So you pay a ton for mid level processors. I hate it.
What's wrong with you?
No because 16:9 is an appalling ratio for a work machine, or a game machine for that matter - how many PC games do you know that are designed in full wide screen.
Every multi-platform game since late 2005, and every PC-exclusive game since mid 2007. Granted, it's only been in the last few years that PC widescreen has become standardized as Horz+ rather than Vert-, but there you go.
Physical media is dead...didn't you notice? The rest of the world did...
That is BS, Blu-Ray content sales were up 61% versus same period last year. It is being accepted on a faster rate than DVD was adopted.
This is a format war only because Apple wants to kill physical media for itunes movie store.
And Apple wants to establish the Mac App store. so killing off optical media drives would help them endeavor to push software without physical media. which i am not sure if i love the idea of because of the censorship on iphone/ipad software.
and to those who are extolling SSD, they are expensive and honestly their storage capacity is a bit limited for the $$.
why not let consumers get the option to choose. that wouldnt hurt anyone? honestly, i am going PC if apple wont do BD or USB 3. by Feb. I need a new desktop and laptop. but i am unwilling to accept Apple and it's agenda to limit technology which costs them $$.
it is BS.
That is BS, Blu-Ray content sales were up 61% versus same period last year. It is being accepted on a faster rate than DVD was adopted.
This is a format war only because Apple wants to kill physical media for itunes movie store.
and to those who are extolling SSD, they are expensive and honestly their storage capacity is a bit limited for the $$.
why not let consumers get the option to choose. that wouldnt hurt anyone? honestly, i am going PC if apple wont do BD or USB 3. by Feb. I need a new desktop and laptop. but i am unwilling to accept Apple and it's agenda to limit technology which costs them $$.
it is BS.
1) How many videos were watched from all streaming sources compared to all optical disc sources? I bet YouTube by itself is higher than all BR watched. Even Netflix is seeing a huge drive for streaming over mailed discs.
2) How many of those BR videos were watched on PCs and not in a Home Theater setup with an HDTV where Blu-ray is optimal?
That is BS, Blu-Ray content sales were up 61% versus same period last year. It is being accepted on a faster rate than DVD was adopted.
Blu-Ray can become obsolete just as fast.
Netflix already has lots of problems with BD - the disks break much more easily in the mail than DVDs. I probably watch ten times as much streaming content on Netflix than actual disks. While Blu-Ray vs. streaming Netflix resolution is amazing, BD navigation is inconvenient. As far as I'm concerned streaming is "good enough" for now. And if you must have 1080p and Dolby TrueHD, Vudu offers it.
This is a format war only because Apple wants to kill physical media for itunes movie store.
The market will do that. Apple won't have to do a thing.
...and to those who are extolling SSD, they are expensive and honestly their storage capacity is a bit limited for the $$.
That too will change, rapidly IMO. I won't miss the spinning disks one bit.
honestly, i am going PC if apple wont do BD or USB 3. by Feb.
They won't, so why wait? Enjoy your Dell POS.
Blu-Ray can become obsolete just as fast.
They won't, so why wait? Enjoy your Dell POS.
Dell, hah! i'd do Sony Vaio or HP Beats.
Physical media is dead...didn't you notice? The rest of the world did...
I must be missing something. Because Blu-ray sales in the U.S. alone this year are $1.285 billion as of 12/5 and DVD sales are $7.8 billion. While the combined $9+ billion is down from 2009 (by about 6%), that's still a massive industry.
For people who just want to see the movie and don't really care about quality, they'll download. But those people who don't want to see big blocks of black squares in dark scenes will want BD, especially for large monitors and TVs.
If there's a film I don't care much about and only intend to watch once and I don't expect the cinematography or the sound to be great (like a cheap comedy), I'll download it. But if it's a classic or a film I intend to watch more than once or want the "extras" - the commentary, outtakes, documentaries, etc., I go for the Blu-ray. Apple may decide to ignore the technology because Steve is so freaking anal-retentive, but I would prefer they incorporate it. Also, I prefer CDs as a distribution medium for large software packages. Furthermore, most of my iPod music library comes from my CDs or vinyl transferred to CDs. If Apple takes the optical drive out of the Mac, they'll lose me as a customer (and I've been a customer since the Apple II) because I have absolutely no intention of "double dipping".
I want:
15" MacBook Pro
Core i5 Quad Core Sandy Bridge
1920x1200 (not 1080) Antiglare
Nvidia 460M 1GB VRAM
320GB SSD
No Disc Drive
8GB RAM
NO MORE THAN 1.8KG (4 pounds)
New MacBook Air-style design.
USD $1,999
BOOM!
One can dream...
Sandy Bridge doesn't have quad-core i5s unfortunately, that will be Ivy Bridge so we'll have to wait until 2012 for that. But I can see that above spec quite easily next year. I reckon 1920 x 1200 on a 15" would be a bit squashed unless they get RI implemented. I'd be happy to see the 1680 x 1050 resolution though.
This year for $1999, I'd expect:
dual-core i5 e.g Core i5-2520M
1680 x 1050 on the 15"
Light Peak x 2 (merged with USB port)
no optical
256GB SSD
Radeon 6550/6570 with 1GB GDDR5 VRAM.
4.5-5lbs
That is BS, Blu-Ray content sales were up 61% versus same period last year. It is being accepted on a faster rate than DVD was adopted.
This is a format war only because Apple wants to kill physical media for itunes movie store.
And Apple wants to establish the Mac App store. so killing off optical media drives would help them endeavor to push software without physical media. which i am not sure if i love the idea of because of the censorship on iphone/ipad software.
and to those who are extolling SSD, they are expensive and honestly their storage capacity is a bit limited for the $$.
why not let consumers get the option to choose. that wouldnt hurt anyone? honestly, i am going PC if apple wont do BD or USB 3. by Feb. I need a new desktop and laptop. but i am unwilling to accept Apple and it's agenda to limit technology which costs them $$.
it is BS.
How many of those Blu-ray sales included the dvd and digital copies disc? It's real easy to buy that even if you don't have a blu-ray player. To my knowledge, there were never any dvd+vhs sets sold in stores.
I've been telling everyone to wait until February, which is when I expect at least an update, but probably a re-design. Waiting until June/10.7 would mean the current generation of MacBook Pros would be 14 months old, which would probably be the longest cycle in company history.
Sandy Bridge doesn't have quad-core i5s unfortunately, that will be Ivy Bridge so we'll have to wait until 2012 for that. But I can see that above spec quite easily next year. I reckon 1920 x 1200 on a 15" would be a bit squashed unless they get RI implemented. I'd be happy to see the 1680 x 1050 resolution though.
This year for $1999, I'd expect:
dual-core i5 e.g Core i5-2520M
1680 x 1050 on the 15"
Light Peak x 2 (merged with USB port)
no optical
256GB SSD
Radeon 6550/6570 with 1GB GDDR5 VRAM.
4.5-5lbs
256 GB hard drives are now redundant. It doesn't matter whether they're SSDs or regular HDDs. Apple has to offer minimum 500 Gb drives and preferably I TB drives as standard with 2 TB drives as options.